Radio College | Training Guides

Training Guides

    Professor Tony Dec's excellent Survival Guide: Internet Resources for Radio Journalists and Producers is an extensive collection of links and categories. Originally part of his on-line course materials at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, he was gracious enough to mirror it here at RadioCollege.org.

    The OpenEar: Attentive Listening and Soundscape Studies site is "is devoted to learning about, and teaching, attentive listening skills and soundscape studies" at the University of Oregon.

    The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System is a nonprofit association of student-staffed radio stations based at schools and colleges across the country. 800+ member-stations operate all sizes and types of facilities including Internet - Webcasting, closed-circuit, AM carrier-current, cable radio and FCC-licensed FM and AM stations.

    The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a new online service for digital distribution, peer review, and licensing of radio content. PRX is about bringing new voices to the airwaves, creating a new revenue stream for producers, and helping local noncommercial radio stations assemble diverse and exceptional programming. PRX offers AIR members a discount on individual and group membership, visit http://www.prx.org/membership for more information.

    Transom.org is a public radio showcase and workshop, with an extensive Tools section, Gear Guide, discussion board, and monthly Special Guests and feature Shows.

    The Third Coast International Audio Festival ``is a celebration of the best feature and documentary work heard worldwide on the radio and the Internet. Organized by a team based at Chicago Public Radio, the festival includes a competition, nationwide broadcast, conference, website and Chicago-based listening series, making it the first of its kind in North America."

    The Legacies Handbook/CD by Dmae Roberts is 130-page color handbook and companion CD of eight audio stories is a step-by-step training guidebook in radio, video, creative writing and book production to help producers work with youth and cultural communities. Available from www.mediarites.org.

    Stories1st.org is an online magazine featuring audio stories, essays by radio professionals and emerging writers along with how-to articles on recording, writing and production and interviews of top radio producers around the country.

    The Teen Reporter Handbook by Joe Richman ``represents the collective knowledge of a long history of radio reporters, producers and storytellers... The Teenage Diaries series was founded on the principle that everybody has a story to tell. We hope this Teen Reporter Handbook will help you make your own radio diary." The handbook is available as web (HTML) pages or as a downloadable Acrobat (PDF) file. Study it, then graduate to...

    Radio Connection is a broadcast industry school with 5,000 students worldwide who train on-site at major radio and TV stations, recording studios, record labels, film studios and video production companies.

    This American Life has come up with a comic-book version of a Guide to Digital Editing (by Eric Nuzum, Program Director for WKSU-FM). This is really a Produce-By-Numbers step-by-step walk through the world of Audio Production, with links to free/cheap software, DIY editing tutorials, and artwork by....

    The Artbabe (Jessica Abel), cartoonist for This American Life's comic book Radio: an Illustrated Guide, practices what she pictures: ``If you have read the comic, and are thinking of doing what I'm doing, that is, following my very own instructions, you'll find here all the mistakes I made and pitfalls I hit, and perhaps think better of it." She describes the typical production scenario: no time, looming deadlines, interviews that don't work out, and software that plain doesn't work. Maybe that's why some audio retailers have made their own guides...

    Audio_Technica's Brief Guide to Microphones peruses patterns, placement and products, along with the invaluable Microphone Selection for Places of Worship (``An enclosed baptistry offers special sound problems due to its acoustics, confined space, and the need to keep the microphone away from water..."). For Tape Tips try...

    Terrapin Tapes, a collection of DeadHeads turned distributors, who have collectively recorded more than 3x(10^9) Jerry Garcia solos, offer Technical Tips for Better Taping and DAT vs. DDS (computer data vs. audio grade digital tapes: ``We all have to live with some error.") But if Bit Error Rate integers don't intrigue, you can always count on...

    13 Rules for Radio by Ira Glass, the TAL Luminary delineates, in Current, the numerology of great radio, from "Seeking Pleasure" to the "45-Second Rule" to "Alex Chadwick." Alex, of course, adheres to the rules of his employer, as outlined in...

    NPR has excellent advice on Suggesting Story Ideas to NPR and a collection of links under the title Radio Journalism 101.

    Now you have your pristine high-fidelity radio program; so it's time for a lo-fi scratchy web version...

    RealNetworks publishes a RealSystem® G2 Production Guide. Their Chapter 4: Producing Audio has all the codec, compression, EQ, Kbps and DC offset info you'll need to cram your full-bandwidth soundfiles down these tiny internet twisted-pair pipes. But perhaps you need something stronger than Real...

    Angry Coffee is dripping with tutorials on all the latest websonic innovations: MP3, Flash, Beatnik, Quicktime, and some fine articles and links on all-things-internet-audio...